Hydragogue Pills.
Take Gamboge powdered 12 grains; Oil of Juniper 2 drops; Mithridate as much as suffices, and make them into Pills for one Dose.
These Pills commonly begin their Operation on on those that are not used to 'em, with something of Qualms and sick Fits, and two or three Vomits: But after a few Doses taken, they leave their Vomiting Quality, and Purge only downwards: And they work so strongly and fast, that I have often wondered to see then bring off twelve or fifteen great watery Stools; and the whole Operation, from the time of taking, performed in two Hours space.
Though the fashionable Opinion of late runs, that there is no such thing in Nature as Elective Purgation, and no Cathartic respects one Humour more than another, yet irrefragable Experience proves to the very Senses, that these Pills draw off especially and specifically watery Humours; yea, so watery, that sometimes the Stools are very little tinged. And therefore in an Anasarca (where the Bowels are found) one would bless himself to see how much good they do, as also in Oedematous Swellings, and running Ulcers.
They also very strangely put a stop to those Sweats which are owing (not to the Crisis of a Fevers, but) to a plenty of Serum, and Fusion of the Blood: And I know nothing else in all the Materia Medica that will do the like.
Note, They are proper Physick for Persons of a cold moist Constitution, but are pernicious to those of an hot and dry Temperment.
Concerning the manner of purging Dropsical People, see the Purging Hydropic Potion hereafter described.
Thomas Fuller
Pharmacopeia Extemporanea 1710